There’s probably not a week goes by without receiving a letter, ‘phone call or email asking for our support as a business in the form of a donation or sponsorship. With so many worthy charities out there, it’s hard to know who to support and who to turn down. It’s hard not to want to support them all but of course, it’s just not viable to do that. So, here are a few ways to help you feel less guilty about your decisions and hopefully less out of pocket:

Have a Dedicated Charity

You could choose to have a dedicated charity. If you find it difficult to decide on just one, you could choose a different one each quarter or year. You can support them in many ways; it doesn’t even have to be with balloon/party-related products, sometimes your time is all that’s needed. If you’re looking for a volunteering opportunity, there are a few websites which can help point you decide on the right thing for you.

Pitch for Your Support

Even if you decide on a dedicated charity, it doesn’t mean the requests stop and before long you’ll probably cave to another request for a donation! Instead, why not say you’ll consider them as your next dedicated charity? However, ask them to ‘pitch’ for your support by sending you a letter or email saying why they think they should be your next ‘charity of the year’ and what it is they can do for you. Only the serious will make the effort.

I also ask for a charity number which can be checked on the Charity Register. If the charity is not registered but you’d still like to help, don’t be afraid to give the main charity body a call and check if the person making the request is authorised to do so.

Choose to Support a Specific Project

For example, let’s say your local pre-school is fund-raising to buy new equipment. Why not offer to make a donation to buy a specific item and then ask them to put your name to it? Imagine a garden bench with a plaque ‘Kindly donated by Awesome Party People’!! Most pre-schools and schools send out updates to parents too so you could ask for a mention there (and maybe attach a flyer) once the piece of equipment has been purchased.

Rather than buying the piece of equipment outright, you could offer to raise funds by offering a promotion in your shop. For example, you could say for every Mickey/Minnie Mouse bubble balloon sold, you will donate £1 to the local pre-school ‘garden bench fund’. This should hopefully provide an incentive for the local pre-school to promote your business at every opportunity.

Offer a voucher

A high value, low cost alternative to giving away products or your time might be to offer vouchers to spend in your shop.

Invoice Your (F.O.C.) Charge

I was reminded recently of something that was taught by Business Link many moons ago (hands up who remembers that good old government organisation?!). Anyway, Business Link told us that if ever you give something away free of charge, to make sure you state what it is you’re giving away and put F.O.C. on your invoice. Better still, as Dom Cassidy of All Things Fun advocates, state the actual cost and then off-set it with ‘discounts’ until you arrive at zero. For example, you may give away some balloon decorating to the value of £100 but show this total on the invoice so they know the value of what you’re giving away and then off-set it with ‘discount for mention in programme xxx’ and ‘discount for inserting flyers in goodie bags’, etc., so that the organisation/charity benefitting from your contribution is aware of the value of what you’re offering. The charity is also much more likely to make sure they do what they said they would when they were vying for your charitable donation.

Match Funding

Apparently, this is Robbie Furman’s* preferred method of dealing with requests and I think it’s genius! If the charity/organisation contacts you asking for help in decorating an event, why not tell them you will match fund? For example, if they ask for decorations for their event e.g. 20 table decorations for a dinner party, tell them the price you would normally charge and then say, if you pay half, I’ll match it. That way, the half they put in should cover a lot of your costs.

I hope this blog helps you feel much better about dealing with future requests. Go forth and feel proud of what you can offer!

Rachel

*Robbie Furman is an amazing ‘Balloon Twisticologist’, infamous for his Lootles characters!